Thursday, January 29, 2015

Today's very interesting political news and comment

Update

One week eye checkup Wednesday. All good. 20/25 in the left
(fixed) eye without glasses. They decided that the right one is far enough
along that they should do it in April. If it goes as well as the left, I'll
only need reading glasses after that. ~Bob

Another incisive collection of essays on culture, politics
and the passing scene by British Psychiatrist Anthony Daniels, writing as
Theodore Dalrymple. Every one is worth reading, and some are "must
reads." I've linked to a few on line in the blog, (see below.) Daniel's
wit is endless entertaining, his use of language always sends me to the
dictionary, and he never fails to make you think (if that's within your
capacity, of course). Some quotes: (Political Correctness) is the attempt to
reform thought by making certain things unsayable; it is also the conspicuous,
not to say intimidating, display of virtue (conceived of as the public espousal
of the 'correct,' which is to say 'progressive' views) by means of a purified
vocabulary and abstract human sentiment. To contradict such sentiment, or not
to use such vocabulary, is to put yourself outside the pale of civilized men
(or should I say 'persons?'). (P47) "The first thing to remember is that
freedom and democracy are not necessarily the same thing at all. A people may
easily vote into power a government that wishes to massacre part of the
population." (P67) "Illusion and disillusion spring eternal in the
human heart." (P157). I received three Dalrymple books for Christmas, a
wonderful gift. (Available in Kindle edition too.) ~Bob

Excerpt: But it would be a mistake to categorize today’s
p.c. culture as only an academic phenomenon. Political correctness is a style
of politics in which the more radical members of the left attempt to regulate
political discourse by defining opposing views as bigoted and illegitimate. Two
decades ago, the only communities where the left could exert such hegemonic
control lay within academia, which gave it an influence on intellectual life
far out of proportion to its numeric size. Today’s political correctness
flourishes most consequentially on social media, where it enjoys a frisson of
cool and vast new cultural reach. And since social media is also now the milieu
that hosts most political debate, the new p.c. has attained an influence over
mainstream journalism and commentary beyond that of the old. It also makes
money. Every media company knows that stories about race and gender bias draw
huge audiences, making identity politics a reliable profit center in a media
industry beset by insecurity. ... In a short period of time, the p.c. movement
has assumed a towering presence in the psychic space of politically active
people in general and the left in particular. “All over social media, there
dwell armies of unpaid but widely read commentators,
ready to launch hashtag campaigns and circulate Change.org petitions in
response to the slightest of identity-politics missteps,” Rebecca Traisterwroterecently inThe New Republic. (Jonathan
Chait is a commentator and writer for New York magazine. He was previously a
senior editor at The New Republic and a former assistant
editor of The American Prospect.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Chait. ~Bob)

Worth Reading: The Art and Politics of Climate Change and
Kite Flying. By Andy Weddington

Excerpt: Since then, I have found it a little more difficult
to say exactly how I would behave if I had to live in an evil tyranny. My
behaviour in the cell in Tiranan had been sensible, perhaps, but hardly heroic.
I am not the stuff from which, for example, a Solzhenitsyn is made. I am too
attached to my ordinary existence for that, and too afraid of the worst that
can be done to me. Of course, the question of how to behave under an evil
tyranny is one that much of the population of Europe
in the Twentieth century had to decide.

Important: Mark Levin: “This is the greatest threat
we face in the United States
of America today”

Excerpt: Mark Levin opened his show last night talking about
what he says is the absolute greatest threat America faces internally. He points
out that we are getting warnings from the trustees of the social security
system, from the trustees of Medicare and Medicaid, from the CBO, and from the
GAO, with all of them saying we are headed for the abyss. And nobody is talking
about it. (I've been talking about it for years: The Coming Collapse of the
American Republichttp://www.amazon.com/Coming-Collapse-American-Republic-prevent/dp/1461122538/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304815980&sr=1-5
All royalties go to a
charity to help wounded veterans. ~Bob)

Excerpt: Storming into bars and restaurants, locking
themselves to concrete-filled-barrels and blocking
Interstates . . . this is the progressive grassroots of
2015. This is the Left, capital-L. This is blind fury, lashing out at others
for having the audacity to drink beverages, eat brunch, or commute in a manner
that the self-appointed arbiters of justice on the Left deem insufficiently
down with the cause. There is no actual “activism” here. There is no attempt at
persuasion here. There is no thought here. There is only resentment and anger
and a desire to lash out at anybody who isn’t one of them. There’s no agenda or
plan to actually improve things. There’s no call to action. It’s
just rage-whining.

Excerpt: Common Core is about making sure that incompetent
students do not feel bad about themselves. “A for effort!” “College try!”

So, they will be graded on how well they cooperate. The old
grading system is being scrapped. It’s the worst of both worlds: they won’t
make the objective grade, but they will be told, “There, there. Don’t feel bad.
Big Brother will kiss it, and make the hurt go away.” The parents are being
misled. But when the annual state exams are imposed and graded, millions of
kids will flunk. Parents will wonder: “What happened?

Excerpt: As incredible as it may sound, the Obama
Administration is putting pressure on The Army to let deserter Bowe Bergdahl go
free after earlier reports he would be charged with Desertion. Maj. Gen. Ronald
F. Lewis, the Army’s chief of public affairs, put out a statement Tuesday
afternoon calling the reports, including one by NBC News, “patently false.”
(Not incredible at all. Obama cannot
let the guy be convicted of desertion after trading five terrorists for him.
~Bob)

Excerpt: President Obama is abandoning his
controversial plan to tax the interest on 529 savings accounts, the White House
announced Tuesday. The 529 plans are savings accounts in which parents and
families can invest after-tax dollars. If the money is used for specified
college costs, they don’t have to pay federal tax on the interest accumulated
in these accounts. (Barack Obama set a new record for backing down on a
"fairness" tax increase noted in his State of the Union.
A week after Obama proposed "free" community college paid for by
taxing 529 college savings accounts, the White House is dropping the idea of
the tax. Both House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Sen. Chuck Schumer
(D-NY) lobbied the president to drop the half-baked proposal, warning Obama it
was a political blunder. Jared Bernstein, former economic adviser to Joe Biden,
described the tax on 529s as "kicking a ball in your own goal." Obama
must have thought only rich people used 529s, as he put $240,000 into college
savings for his daughters in 2007 alone. But according to the College Savings
Foundation, the amount sitting in the average 529 is $19,774 -- less than a
tenth of Obama's annual contribution. It's the way 12 million American families
prepare for college. You could call it "middle-class economics." But
Robert Tracinski argues that the Left really is anti-middle class:
"The truly committed leftist looks upon our private savings as a vast
reserve of capital unfairly withheld from its proper function of servicing the
needs of the state." To the Left, all money belongs to the government. --
The Patriot Post www.patriotpost.us/subscribe/

Excerpt: A week after his State of the Union address,
political observers are still trying to figure out what President Obama’s game
is. That’s because rhetorically and substantively, he seems to be in another
world. In his State of the Union address, Obama refused to even take note of
the GOP’s historic midterm gains and the fact the House and Senate are now both
under Republican control. On foreign policy, Obama talked as if everything was
going swimmingly abroad, prompting even the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank to
marvel at Obama’s “disconnect” from what is happening in Yemen, Syria,
Iraq and Russia.

Excerpt: This year’s congressional efforts to reduce
corporate income tax will create great opportunities for demagogues. The United States
has the highest corporate income tax rate among the 34 industrialized nations
of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The effect of
high corporate taxes gives corporations incentives to lower their effective tax
rates by engaging in activities that lower their competitiveness and to shift
profits to foreign subsidiaries. Demagogues will claim that corporations should
pay their fair share of taxes. The fact of the matter, which even MIT
economists understand but might not publicly admit, is corporations do not pay
taxes.

Excerpt: In fact, the Kochs are hardly the biggest spenders.
In 2012, reports
the Center for Responsive Politics (a nonpartisan outlet that tracks
political spending), 13 of the 20 most generous organizations making donations
to outside spending groups (i.e., those not affiliated with candidates’ official
campaigns) leaned Democratic. Koch Industries was No. 136 on that list. The
Kochs did not even appear on the list of the top
100 individual donors (to outside spending groups that required the
disclosure of donor names — some, such as 501(c)(4)s, do not). Then in last
fall’s midterms, the largest individual donor was California billionaire Tom Steyer, whose
$73.7 million went exclusively to Democratic candidates or causes. After Steyer
came former New York City
mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose $23.8 million also worked almost entirely to the
benefit of Democrats. The Koch brothers were tied for 24th on the list.

Democrats see new
chance to attack Kochs after $1 billion spending announcement

Excerpt: Forget Jeb, Rand and Ted. For Democrats, it’s all
about Charles and David.

The announcement this week that the vast political network
backed by the wealthy industrialist Koch brothers aims
to spend nearly $1 billion on the 2016 elections has reignited
Democratic hopes of casting the brothers as electoral villains and linking them
closely to Republican candidates. It’s a campaign strategy that yielded little success for the party in
2014, a banner year for the GOP. But Democratic officials and operatives say
they are hopeful that their anti-Koch message will have more potency in a
presidential election year.

Children in
Single-Parent Families Perform Worse on Achievement Tests than Their Two-Parent
Peers

Excerpt: Woessman notes that single-parent homes tend to
have fewer resources -- and less time -- to devote to their children, and
various studies indicate that children of single parents in the United States
face greater emotional distress and have lower educational attainment. What
about academic achievement? According to Woessman's study: Children of
single-parent families score lower than students in two-parent families, on
average scoring 18 points worse. In the United States, the difference is
especially pronounced: the average achievement difference in math between
children of single- and two-parent families is 26.6 points -- roughly
equivalent to one grade level. (But it flies in the faith of leftist orthodoxy,
so will be ignored. And the kids will go on failing. But the left likes more
voters dependent on government. ~Bob)

Excerpt: Last week, a 2-star Air Force general reportedly accused some of his own people of treason. Not
because they were cowardly in the face of adversaries or gave aid and comfort
to the enemy, but because they dared to speak to their own congressional
representatives about the direction of the defense budget. The comments,
delivered in the midst of a failed, flawed, but relentless effort by the
service to retire the A-10 against the best advice of many of its own
people, raises an important question: does the Air Force see itself as an
extension of a free society or an extremist and intolerant world apart? Before
we explore one possible answer to that question, a few propositions as to why
this general’s actions are much more important and distressing than the Air
Force’s languid response would indicate.

Excerpt: George Santayana got it right when he said, “Those
who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” President Obama’s
latest move to normalize diplomatic and trade relations with the brutal Cuban
regime with little or no guarantee of anything much in return will only empower
and enrich the communist leaders even more. Mr. Obama needs to take a lesson
from history. It has been almost two decades since the United States
established diplomatic and normal trade relations with the brutal communist
regimes of former Indochina (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia), yet the peoples of
these countries continue to suffer extreme human-rights abuses, repression of
religious freedom, ethnic cleansing of minorities, loss of livelihood and
extreme poverty. The corrupt leaders of these countries line their pockets with
riches while the common folk continue to suffer and tens of thousands of
political prisoners languish in prisons and gulags under abhorrent conditions.
The less lucky have been murdered. Why should Mr. Obama expect anything
different from communist Cuba?
--Mike Benge (The comment above on this subject is short, sweet, and very
cogent. This "breakthrough" will afford Mr. Obama nice photo ops
and claims of brilliance in diplomacy, but in reality just gives the Castros
and their supporters great support for their interests while doing pretty much
nothing for anyone else. [Well, yes, we did get one American back. Not a really
fantastic trade.] --Del)

Quote

In the early days of the world, the Almighty said to the
first of our race In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread; and since
then, if we except the light and the air of heaven, no good thing has been, or
can be enjoyed by us, without having first cost labour. And inasmuch [as] most
good things are produced by labour, it follows that [all] such things of right
belong to those whose labour has produced them. But it has so happened in all
ages of the world, that some have labored, and others have, without labour,
enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits. This is wrong, and should not
continue. To [secure] to each labourer the whole product of his labour, or as
nearly as possible, is a most worthy object of any good government. --Abraham Lincoln

Excerpt: Those who served in the Marine Corps enjoy picking
on the Army because of its reputation as the softer of the two ground-combat
services. But this is getting ridiculous. ... The piece is headlined, “More
female drill sergeants help change cadence at Fort Leonard Wood.” The tone is
clearly meant to be positive, though it is not clear why the reporter writing
the piece thinks that associating female drill instructors with a virtual
caricature of soft, ineffective military training portrays these pioneering
soldiers in a more positive light. Cooing words of encouragement if recruits
are afraid of a rifle’s recoil? Physical training to be held inside … because
of the cold?

Excerpt: The National Football League will air a
bone-chilling commercial during Sunday’s Super Bowl to raise
awareness about domestic violence and sexual assault. (Good--but I first
thought "home invasion" not "domestic violence." ~Bob

Worth Reading:
Sharyl Attkisson Testifies: If You Cross The
Obama Administration, You Will Be Attacked and Punished. By Katie Pavlich

Excerpt: "The job of getting at the truth has never
been more difficult. Facets of federal government have isolated themselves from
the public they serve. They covet and withhold public information that we as
citizens own. They bully and threaten access of journalists who do their jobs,
news organizations that publish stories they don't like and whistleblowers who
dare to tell the truth," Attkisson said. "When I reported on factual
contradictions in the Administration's accounts regarding Fast and Furious,
pushback included a frenzied campaign with White House officials trying to
chill the reporting by calling and emailing my superiors and colleagues, using
surrogate bloggers to advance false claims, one White House official got so mad
he angrily cussed me out. The Justice Department used its authority with building
security to handpick report(ers) allowed to attend a Fast and Furious briefing,
refusing to clear me into the public Justice Department building." (When
in the senate, we used to say, "Freedom of the press belongs to those who
own one." Maybe we need to change that to, "Freedom of the Press
belongs to those who hold the whip or gun over the media." ~Bob)

Excerpt: For years, studies showed that the older we get,
the less capable we become. However, new studies by the universities of Virginia, Texas
and Stanford indicate that many of our previous notions about aging are dead
wrong. Over the next two minutes, Steve McDonald talks about what’s now being
considered the new best years of peoples’ lives. (I really liked this two
minute video, and recommend it highly to every senior! --Del. As soon as I find my reading
glasses...~Bob)

Excerpt: While the Marine Corps can meet Defense Department
Strategic Guidance requirements, there is no margin, and even absent
sequestration the service will need recovery years following a decade of war,
the service’s commandant testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee
here today. Sequester will exacerbate current challenges and result in fewer
active-duty Marine Corps battalions and squadrons, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr.
told the Senate panel. “You expect your Marines to operate forward, engage with
partners, deter potential adversaries and respond to crises,” Dunford said.
“And when we fight, you expect us to win.”

Yet, despite budget concerns, the Marine Corps remains ready
to help defend the nation and its global interests, Dunford said, with more
than 30,000 Marines forward deployed and engaged around the world. (Maybe this
new guy will be more direct and less political than Amos was. --Del. Like the Madison recruiting
office, HQMC is in contact with the enemy every day. And it's a political
enemy, Del. ~Bob)

Narcissist in Chief
Praises Himself 118 Times in Single Speech. From The Patriot Post

Excerpt: Can you ever get tired of hearing yourself talk,
much less making it all about you? Not if you’re Barack Obama. The president
made a stop in New Delhi
this week to deliver a speech that was once again replete with personal
pronouns. After analyzing the yawn-inducing remarks, Grabien reported, “Somehow
in the span of just 33 minutes, Obama referenced himself 118 times.” They
added, “For those keeping score at home, that’s 3.5 Obama references per
minute.” Whether he’s demogugeing here at home, or proselytizing abroad, it’s
never about “We the People,” as the beginning words of the U.S. Constitution
make clear. It’s about “I, Barack Obama.” As if that weren’t embarrassing
enough, the man actually believes he’s accomplished something.

Excerpt: Democrats are on offense all the time, even when
they’ve just had their legs cut off. They announce absurd agenda items and then
indignantly demand to know why Republicans are refusing to deal with the free
unicorn-rides proposal. Obama is a lame-duck president and, three months ago,
his party was slaughtered in midterm elections. And yet, I gather that his
State of the Union address consisted of a litany of insanely expensive, utterly
pointless ideas. ... The GOP needs to hold tobacco company-style hearings,
hauling in the presidents of various universities and asking them to justify
their multimillion-dollar salaries. We want professors explaining, under
penalty of perjury, exactly how much they make per hour for their rigorous
schedules of two classes a week, summers off, and full-year “sabbaticals” every
few terms. Also, we’d like to know how driving the getaway car for a cop-killer
constitutes a qualification to teach college.

How to Lose Friends
and Empower Radicals: The Peace Prize President's More Dangerous World

Excerpt: Since 2008, the world has become a significantly
more dangerous place. In every region, new threats have emerged or old ones
have reasserted them. The scorecard is clear: the bad guys are winning and America’s
interests are being undermined daily.

Excerpt: Among the panoply of rightward-learning politicians
who are currently flirting with running for the presidency is one Mike
Huckabee, a former pastor, governor, television host, and author who has of
late been preparing for office by converting himself into Larry the Cable
Guy. ... “We like the simple life,” Huckabee announces in his book.
“Status is a Ford 150 truck; luxury is crawfish étouffée and slaw on your pulled-pork
sandwich; and privilege is front-row seats at a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert.” And
unlike those “misfortunate” souls in “Manhattan,
the Washington Beltway, or in Beverly
Hills,” we know the joy that one can get from wading
“in chest-deep water to hunt mallards.” Insofar as it goes, there is nothing
wrong with this. Indeed, I like many of these things too. But the
self-conscious spinning of local tradition into a national political aesthetic
is invariably irritating, and, typically, electorally counterproductive. There
are many wonderful things about the world Huckabee is attempting to represent.
But surely, just surely, it is possible for a southerner to run for high office
without dressing up as Forrest Gump? (A quick point about that line, “Status is
a Ford 150 truck; luxury is crawfish étouffée and slaw on your pulled-pork
sandwich . . . “ Governor, I think you have to be a little careful about
suggesting that you’re all about the “simple life” with a more humble
definition of luxury than all those coastal elites. For starters, your
three-story beachfront house in Florida
-- with 8,224 square feet of living space, and 2,969 square feet of porch and
deck space -- is worth $2.8 million. It’s a nice house, with a built-in radio studio. -- Jim Geraghty, Morning Jolt

http://www.nationalreview.com/newsletters. Every politician
says things the opposition uses--or twists--to club him or her with. But
Huckabee will say so many, the campaign, which he would lose, would be 90%
about his gaffes. ~Bob)

Mike Huckabee’s PAC Paid His Family Almost $400,000. The
would-be candidate's organization hasn't given much to fellow Republicans—but
it has spent a ton on family and fundraising. By Tim Murphy

Excerpt: Politics is a family business for potential
Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. Over the
last six years, the Fox News host's political action committee, which was
created to raise money for GOP candidates, has paid nearly $400,000 to members
of Huckabee's extended family, while spending just a fraction of its
multimillion-dollar fundraising haul on the Republican contenders. ...
Republican candidates haven't benefited as much from the political action
committee as Huckabee's relatives. Since its inception, Huck PAC has never
spent more than 12 percent of its funds on candidates or other PACs. It gave
only 5 percent of its revenues—that is $47,000 of $1,063,142—to candidates
during the 2012 cycle, when Huckabee briefly flirted with a second presidential
run.

Excerpt: At Reason.com, Jason Keisling, Nick Gillespie and
Lisa Snell have compiled an infographic with some potentially surprising facts
about charter schooling: Charters produce more, with less money. In fact,
charter schools receive 30 percent less per student than what a typical public
school receives, yet they perform better -- for every $1,000 in funds, charter
school students perform better on standardized testing -- 16 points higher on
reading, and 17 points higher on math. Charter schools have more racial
diversity than traditional public schools. Whites make up 52.4 percent of
traditional public school students but just 35.6 percent of charter school
students. Minority children from low-income families see real academic gains
from charter schools. For example, blacks from low-income families attending
charter schools receive the equivalent of an additional 7.5 weeks of math
instruction and 6.5 weeks of reading instruction.

Excerpt: During National School Choice Week groups from all over the
country are showcasing the many benefits of school choice. But the vast
coalition of politicians and organized labor who are pushing for an increase in
the federal hourly minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 or $15.00 are silent. That’s
a pity, because improved education is the most reliable route to higher wages.
... Former Democratic New York State Senator and Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton also opposes educational vouchers because she does not
“think we can afford to siphon dollars away from our underfunded public
schools.” The Clintons sent their daughter
Chelsea to the private—and pricey—SidwellFriendsSchool
in Washington, D.C.
Mrs. Clinton
supports a higher minimum wage and expanded government funding for higher
education. Similarly, President Obama, a proponent of higher minimum wages, has
repeatedly tried to end funding for D.C.’s Opportunity Scholarships. He must be
aware of the value of better education, because his daughters also attend
Sidwell Friends. Opposition to school choice is driven by teachers’ unions, who
do not want parents to be able to opt out of the low-performing schools.

Excerpt: Is America
in recovery? President Obama called the State of the Union
"strong" during
his address last week, but Stephen Moore, economist at the Heritage
Foundation, says that, despite some improvement, the economy is still
struggling: America has not seen an economic recovery as slow as today's in the
last five decades. Had America's
economy improved at the same rate as an average recovery, American families
would have $10,000 more in income, on average. Median household income is
$1,500 below what it was when the recession ended -- pay raises are not keeping
up with inflation. Business creation in the United States in 2013 was at its
lowest rate since 2001.

Excerpt: W. Mitt Romney, who was the GOP nominee
for president in 2012 against President was the selection of 20 percent of
the respondents, followed by former Florida governor John E. "Jeb" Bush with 16
percent and Wisconsin Gov.
Scott Walker with 9 percent, said Doug Kaplan, the managing
partner of Gravis Marketing,
the Florida-based company that conducted the poll. (Yeah, but remember that
those SC Republicans are all right wing racists who just elected an Indian
Governor and the first Black US Senator from the south since reconstruction.
~Bob)

Excerpt: “Get down, get down. Everybody get down.” New Hope, Minnesota,
city councilman John Elder drew his concealed weapon Monday night and covered
his fellow city council members Monday night after a man with a long history of
mental illness opened fire after two new police officers were sworn in. Elder,
a former police officer, drew his concealed weapon and prepared to cover his
fellow city council members after shots range out outside the room in city
hall. He did not have to fire his weapon, even though at least one bullet
entered the room. The attacker was killed in the exchange of fire with police
officers, and two officers were wounded, including one the officers who
was just sworn in.

Excerpt: Scientists tracking the Ebola outbreak in Guinea say the
virus has mutated.

Researchers at the Institut Pasteur in France, which
first identified the outbreak last March, are investigating whether it could
have become more contagious. More than 22,000 people have been infected with
Ebola and 8,795 have died in Guinea,
Sierra Leone and Liberia. (Meanwhile,
Americans, relieved that Ebola proved not as dangerous as feared [as predicted
in this blog] are on a smoke break outside McDonalds. [Tobacco kills 430,000
people a year, obesity 300,000, flu up to 30,000, breast cancer 40,000,
pulmonary fibrosis (my problem) 40-45,000, traffic accidents 33,780, and murder
12,664.] ~Bob)

Excerpt: Charles
Blow, a black, left-wing New York Times columnist, took to Twitter andthe pages of the Timesto excoriate Yale and a campus police
officer over his son being detained at gunpoint. Apparently, Blow’s son met the
description of a campus burglar. After learning of the incident, an incensed Blow
published a series of racially-charged Tweets followed by a racially-charged
Times column. ... "I am reminded of what I have always known, but what
some would choose to deny: that there is no way to work your way out — earn
your way out — of this sort of crisis. In these moments, what you’ve
done matters less than how you look." ... Yale’s police
chief is also black.

Excerpt: The Senate approved legislation Thursday that would
mandate the construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, a
bipartisan vote that will set the stage for a veto showdown with President
Obama. On a 62-to-36 vote, Republicans and nine Democrats approved a bill that
mandates construction of the 840-mile energy pipeline that Obama has vowed to
veto while federal environmental reviews continue.

Excerpt: The rabid devotees of the world's most fanatical
religion, (I'm not looking at you Islam), the not-so-great church of Global
Warming - will, no matter what happens with the climate or the weather,
always point to it as proof positive that they are right. The believers in
this worldwide cult, led by their prophet Al Gore, cry out day and night for the
blood (and money) of our people... and it seems that nothing can sway their
devotion.

Very Scary: What’s the right temperature for the
Earth? And what happens when countries disagree about what it should be? By
Andy Parker and David Keith

Excerpt: Imagine being able to control the temperature of
the Earth like a home thermostat, turning it down a few notches to reduce the
effects of global warming. That’s the goal of solar geoengineering. By spraying
aerosols into the stratosphere, we could block a fraction of inbound sunlight
and temporarily cool the Earth. ... Long treated as an illegitimate
child of the climate-science community and rarely mentioned in polite
company, solar geoengineering is now coming of age. The Royal Society, the
oldest scientific academy in the world, mainstreamed the issue with the
publication of the seminal report “Geoengineering
the Climate” in 2009. (Some of my correspondents believe it is already
being done, reporting on "chemtrails." I have seen no solid evidence.
But engineering the climate could so easily go badly wrong. Back in the
seventies, when "global cooling" was the "settled science,"
scientists suggested dropping ash on the poles to increase the sunlight
absorbed and warm the Earth. Warning at least has some winners, in increased
food production. See the Medieval Warm Period, when I have read it was warmer
than now, the Norse settled Greenland, and established
vineyards. When the climate, with no help from man, turned cooler again, they
died out. ~Bob)

Excerpt: Israel
is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East and North
Africa. Eight million Israelis are surrounded by some 400 million
Muslims in more than 20 states. Almost all of Israel’s neighbors are anti-Israeli
dictatorships, monarchies or theocracies – a number of them reduced to a state
of terrorist chaos. Given the rise of radical Islam, the huge petrodollar
wealth of the Middle East and lopsided demography, how has Israel so far
survived? The Jewish state has always depended on three unspoken assumptions
for its tenuous existence.

Video: Pat Condell: “Jews are being driven out of Europe by Muslim anti-Semitism”

Excerpt: Two gunmen entered the Corinthia Hotel in Tripoli Tuesday morning.
When their shooting rampage was over, at
least ten people had been killed. For jihadists in Libya, the
hotel was an inviting target. Foreign diplomats, Western tourists and officials
from Libya's
rival governments are known to frequent it. Indeed, the victims were five
foreigners, including an American, and five Libyans. The American killed in the
attack has
been identified as David Berry. According to The New York Daily
News, Berry is a former
US Marine who worked as a security contractor for Crucible, LLC. (More
fruit of Obama's Excellent Libyan Adventure. ~Bob)

Excerpt: “U.S.
suddenly goes quiet on effort to bolster Afghan forces” was the headline in
the New York Times that caught my attention. How, pray tell, does a nation go
quiet on a $65 billion endeavor? It stops talking. Score another victory for
the forces of over
classification in the name of national security. The Times reports
that routine data used in the quarterly reports from the Special Inspector
General for Afghanistan Reconstruction for the past six years are now
classified. Locked behind an appendix to the report that can only be read by
those with high-level security clearances. That’s a decidedly small universe.
(A cynic might think this stuff was classified, not to protect the dwindling
American forcers there fighting the non-terrorist Taliban, but to protect the
"most transparent administration in history" from criticism. ~Bob)

Excerpt: A video uploaded to
YouTube appears to show a large Hezbollah Brigades convoy transporting
weapons, troops, and armored vehicles to the front to fight the Islamic State.

Several American-made military vehicles, including an M1
Abrams tank, M113 armored personnel carriers, Humvees, and Mine-Resistant
Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAP), as well as Iranian-made Safir 4x4s and
technicals (armed pickup trucks) are in the convoy.

The Hezbollah Brigades is US-designated foreign terrorist
organization that has been involved in killing American soldiers in Iraq.

ISIS threatens Obama, Japanese and Jordanian
hostages in new online messages

Excerpt: A new, grisly beheading video from ISIS includes a
direct threat against President Obama and is one of at least three new warnings
from the terror organization, including pledges to kill Jordanian and Japanese
hostages if a hostage held by Jordan
is not freed. In a new online video discovered by the Middle East Media
Research Institute (MEMRI) on Tuesday, three Islamic State fighters stand
behind a kneeling Kurdish fighter as one of the extremists launches into a
diatribe against the U.S.
and other Western nations. “Know, oh Obama, that will reach America,” says one of the fighters,
clad in black and wearing a balaclava, in a translation from Arabic provided by
MEMRI. “Know also that we will cut off your head in the White House, and
transform America into a MuslimProvince.”
“Know also that we will cut off your head in the White House, and transform America into a MuslimProvince.”
- ISIS fighter in new beheading video. (Just
wait until President Barack Hussein Obama learns about this recent beheading,
he is going to be very angry at those who commit such "work-place
violence," right? What is his new name for these Islamist terrorists? --Don)

A suicide bomber was shot dead by Israeli forces, Muslims
took up his body and started protesting and these Dumbos did not know that that
suicide belt was still tied to the bomber's body they were carrying.. what
happened next .is in the video. (I just love a happy ending. --Steve.)

Excerpt: Moro Islamic Liberation Front guerrillas were
involved in the killing of 49 Special Action Force (SAF) commandos but the
“unfortunate and saddening development” was due to the failure of the elite
police unit to coordinate its activities with the rebel group, MILF chief peace
negotiator Mohaquer Iqbal said yesterday. Iqbal said fighting erupted before
dawn Sunday when three SAF platoons intruded into a supposedly
government-recognized guerilla enclave in Barangay Tukanalipao, supposedly to
arrest Malaysian explosives expert Zulkifli Bin Hir and his Maguindanaon
cohort, the long wanted Basit Usman... Senior Superintendent Noel Armilla,
officer-in-charge of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) police,
said they have so far counted 20 fatalities, based on bodies recovered from the
scene after the six-hour battle.

Excerpt: There is abundant evidence that there really are
no-go zones, despite all the denial. See this video,
and more: here is a video about how Muslims plotted to ambush Swedish police
with firebombs. Another video shows
riots that followed police trying to make an arrest in a Belgian Muslim
suburb. Here is
video of Muslim riots in Trappes,
France.
And here is a video showing
the plight of the remaining French women in a Muslim-dominated area of France. Here is a video showing
Muslim youths running amok in Paris.
In Paris, Muslims firebombed a bus with fifty
passengers inside, and Muslim riots are spiraling out of control in
Sweden.
All this is well known.

Excerpt: Contrary to what the Obama administration had
initially claimed in its public comments, top U.S.
diplomatic officials knew the U.S.
compound in Benghazi, Libya, was under terrorist attack
on September 11, 2012. This is big. In testimony before the U.S. House
Oversight Committee on October 10, 2012, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
Charlene Lamb let the cat out of the bag. Apparently, the agents within the DiplomaticSecurityCommandCenter
in Washington, D.C.,
knew that U.S.
embassy personnel were under a terrorist attack from the moment it began.

Excerpt: America
is headed for a national security train wreck because President Obama--for
reasons of ideology and wishful thinking--believes in some dangerous fantasies:
...Dr. Peter Vincent Pry is Executive Director of the Task Force on
National and Homeland Security and Director of the U.S. Nuclear Strategy Forum,
both Congressional Advisory Boards, and served on the Congressional EMP
Commission, the Congressional Strategic Posture Commission, the House Armed
Services Committee, and the CIA.

Excerpt: White House deputy press
secretary Eric Schultz argued
during Wednesday’s briefing that the United States can negotiate
prisoner swaps with Taliban members,
because the Taliban is
not considered a terrorist group. (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Through_the_Looking-Glass:
"When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful
tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less." "The
question is," said Alice,
"whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—
that's all." ~Bob)

Just when I thought the world
could not get any stranger, the White House said this week that the Taliban is
not a terrorist organization, and then General Dempsey sponsored a hagiography
of the late King of Saudi Arabia. Respectfully,
Michael Yon

Obama Just Renamed
The Taliban, And It Insults Every Soldier That Fought Them

Excerpt: Deputy Press Secretary, Eric Shultz, was just made
to come out and say that the current administration does (not?) regard the
Taliban as a ‘terrorist group’, but rather an ‘armed insurgency.’ This is the same
Taliban who attacked a school full of children in Pakistan, killing 132 of them.

But not terrorists: Gunman kills 3 American
contractors in Afghanistan

Excerpt: Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) did
something this past week that was likely a purposeful attempt at “tweaking” the
White House and making some in the Obama administration a little upset. (It
worked.) Without consulting the White House (or any Democrats), he chose to
invite the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to come and speak before
a joint session of Congress. Netanyahu gladly accepted (even knowing that their
could be backlash since the White House was left out of the loop)
saying “As prime minister of Israel, I am obligated to make every effort
in order to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear weapons that would be aimed at
the State of Israel. This effort is worldwide and I will go anywhere I am
invited in order to enunciate the State of Israel’s position and in order to
defend its future and its existence.”

Excerpt: Most Americans who have been following the
story regarding the attacks on September 11, 2012 are pretty sure that the
Obama State Department under Hillary Clinton pushed a false story on the American
people. There has been quite a bit of documentation that substantiates this.
However, a recent Freedom of
Information Act lawsuit has produced new documents that reveal
a memo that was sent the day after the Benghazi
attacks to the US Embassy in Tunis, Tunisia which shows that the administration,
knowing that Benghazi
was an Islamic terrorist attack, warned the Embassy of
"demonstrations."

Excerpt: Editor's note: The video embedded in this story
features disturbing themes and extreme violence. Just three weeks after radical
Islamic terrorists attacked satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo over its
mocking cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad and waged deadly assaults on other
locations in Paris, France, the French government has released a website
and video aimed at countering extremism and, more specifically, discouraging
young people from joining Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq. (Suddenly
the French are stronger opponents of the Jihadists than the US. ~Bob)

Hamas-Supporting MB
Figures Meet With Congress, State Dept. By John Rossomando

Excerpt: A delegation including senior exiled members of Egypt's Muslim
Brotherhood and two people with a history of open support for Hamas lobbied
senators Wednesday. The delegation requested a meeting with several senators, a
Senate source told the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT).

Excerpt: “This is not just about words,” the Hawaii Democrat
told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren. “It’s not about semantics. It’s really about
having a real, true understanding of who our enemy is and how important that
is, that we have to understand what their motivation is and what their ideology
is — the radical Islamic ideology that is fueling them.” Ms. Gabbard took
umbrage with Secretary of State Sen. John Kerry (D-MA)0%‘s recent
assertion that the criminal conduct of terrorists with the Islamic State and al
Qaeda is “rooted in alienation, poverty, thrill-seeking and other factors,”
which she said is flat-out wrong.

Excerpt: Gen. John Keane—a former vice chief of staff of the
Army—recognized the split between the radical Shi’ia branch of Islam and the
role Iran plays not only in the Middle East but beyond, using “proxies to
attack the United States”—such as Hezbollah did in Lebanon or its sectarian
militias did in Iraq—while developing its own nuclear and long-range missile
capabilities and radical Sunnis. The radical Sunnis, through al Qaeda and its
affiliates, “exceed Iran” in attracting recruits and threatening Europe and
North America. He cited the recent attack in Paris
at satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket as an
example of radical Sunni reach outside of the Middle East.
(It’s about time for some of these people to speak --Don M.)

‘Voluntary’ Sharia
Tribunal In Texas:
This Is How It Starts. By Pamela Geller

Excerpt: This is how it starts. This is how it started in the United Kingdom.
When Sharia courts were instituted there, Muslim and non-Muslim officials alike
all assured the British public and the world that they would be voluntary,
restricted to matters involving non-criminal matters, and subject to the
British courts. Any areas in which British law and Sharia law conflicted would
be referred not to the Sharia courts, but to the British courts.That is not how it worked out.
TheTelegraphreported in August 2011 that “there are growing concerns” that the
Sharia courts “are creating a parallel legal system — and one that is
developing completely unchecked.”